Brighter Days
by jeka1215
Summary: The war is over and it's time to move on. But how? What happens next? Follow Harry, Hermione, and the Weasleys as they struggle to pick up the pieces of their broken lives and get out of the shadow of the pain they all feel. They're moving towards the brightest days of their lives, but they have a long way to go to get there.
1. Chapter 1

Ginny Weasley sat in silence as she stared up at the night sky. She was silent a lot these days, and it's something she never expected. If her mother had ever told her that she'd be spending most of her nights staring out her bedroom window in silence, she would've laughed until she cried.

But that was then. Things were different now.

Life was so much easier when she was younger. Bill used to take her outside and toss her in the air, and treat her like a princess. She was always his favorite. Charlie bought her stuffed dragons and castles and they made up stories about princes who rescued the princess from the castle by slaying the dragon. Naturally, Charlie always got to be the dragon. Usually poor Ron got stuck being the prince. He pretended like he hated it, but Ginny knew he loved spending time with them.

Percy taught her how to think. He'd tell her riddles or bring her puzzles to work, and then he'd sulk when she finished the puzzle first. Fred and George loved to play pranks on her because it was a true test of their skills. She was much younger than they were, but she also had an uncanny ability to know when they were up to no good, and tended to stay out of trouble that way. And Ron, well, Ron spent his time just trying to remind everyone that Ginny wasn't the _only_ young Weasley running around. He was never so happy as when he got to go to Hogwarts and leave her behind. It wasn't that he was mean, he was just happy to have a moment where he got to be in the spotlight. Being the youngest brother, but not the baby of the family, was tough on Ron, Ginny knew that.

Her parents treated her like a star. She was their princess in a world full of frog princes. She was encouraged to express herself and be whatever she wanted to be. They loved to read to her and tell her stories. And as each boy went off to school, they got to spend more and more time with her alone. Not that it was quiet. Ginny made plenty of noise on her own.

Harry Potter was simpler then, too. He was just a famous boy who defeated a greater evil than young Ginny ever understood. He was an icon, a hero. He was the prince who slayed the dragon to save the princess. She idolized him, as did the rest of the wizarding world. Never in her wildest dreams did she imagine she'd be face-to-face with him, one day. She also didn't think she'd be sticking her elbow in the butter dish, or sending him singing Valentines, or drooling over him in the Great Hall.

She definitely didn't think he'd be rescuing her from Tom Riddle's spirit by killing a basilisk with the Sword of Gryffindor in the Chamber of Secrets after she set the evil creature loose in the school. That's when the silence began.

At first it was the kind of silence that isn't silence at all, but screams in the middle of the night, waking up in a cold sweat, tangled in blankets and dreams of snakes and darkness. But except for the screaming, Ginny didn't say much at all, at least not for a while. Her mum bought her a small notebook for Christmas that year, and Ginny learned that the nightmares stopped for a little while if she just wrote her thoughts down before bed. She talked less and wrote more.

And she seemed to have a new-found connection with Harry Potter that she just couldn't explain. It wasn't a sixth sense, entirely, just a sort of hyper-awareness of his presence. If he walked into a room she was in, she knew, instantly, that he was there. She knew, at a glance, if he was agitated, excited, anxious, or sad. She knew who he fancied, and not just because he was bad at hiding it. She knew things about him that nobody else knew, even Ron and Hermione. She doubted they knew about his nighttime habit of wandering into the common room and staring at the fire. She knew, because sometimes, she was there, too, recovering from a nightmare, as Harry was likely doing. He never noticed her. He was far too deep in thought. But she watched him as he found peace in the crackling fire, and then went back up to bed. They were alike, in that sense. The common room fire was more cathartic than Ginny's well-used notebook or any Occlumency technique Harry might learn, if Snape ever got around to actually teaching him anything.

And when he faced death every year, Ginny held her breath until she knew he was safe. She knew that she would know if he was dead. That part of her stomach that came to life when he saved her would grow cold and dark when he passed from life into death. Still, she breathed a sigh of relief each time Madame Pomphrey pronounced him safe and healthy.

Ginny even knew the day that things changed between her and Harry. She was sitting in her room reading a letter from Dean in the summer after her fourth year. Harry had just arrived from Privet Drive, and the family was ambushing him in the kitchen. She went down stairs to greet him when this feeling of warmth washed over her. Instead of the smile she had intended to greet him with, she found herself engulfing him in a hug and welcoming him back. She didn't know what made her do it, but the bemused expression on Harry's face told her that things had definitely changed, though he wasn't quite sure how, yet.

It took him months to figure it out. But the moment he did, she knew. He called it the "beast inside his chest", and when it roared for the first time, Ginny felt a shock-wave through her whole being. It wasn't just the surprise of being discovered snogging Dean that made her jump in surprise, it was the energy that was radiating off of Harry, and the intensity of his gaze. She knew he was looking at her, even before she turned her brown eyes to his piercing green ones.

In fairness to Dean, and because he was a genuinely nice guy, she dated him for a while longer. But Harry was electric, and she just couldn't be with Dean when Harry kept sending jolts through her every time he walked by.

If you'd told an eight-year-old Ginny Weasley that Harry Potter would snog her in the middle of the crowded common room after an unexpected Quidditch victory, she would have called you a lunatic and kindly asked you to see a Healer.

If you'd told her that she'd rush him from across that same common room, thereby causing the kiss in the first place, she'd probably fall out of her chair in a dead faint.

The instant he came through the portrait hole she knew something was different. He was alive, charged. The Quidditch victory had turned his bad day into something new, and he was so proud of her that he could hardly contain it. He was bold, too. She could tell that without even seeing him. He had a courage she'd never seen in this boy-wonder before. And then there was that warmth again, just like she felt at the Burrow. And much like what happened at the Burrow, she simply ran at him.

Later, when they talked about it, he said she had this unreadable blazing look in her eyes and he just _knew_ that he was supposed to kiss her. He didn't think about it, didn't ponder it, didn't question it. He just kissed her, because he knew that if he didn't, the world wouldn't ever be right again.

There, by the lake in the sunset on a cool, Spring day, Ginny Weasley fell in love with Harry Potter.

And then, just like it began, it was over. He told her it was for her own safety, and she didn't question his decision. He had things to do that she wasn't a part of yet. He didn't love her the way she loved him. Not yet, and maybe not ever. But he still cared deeply for her, more deeply than even he knew. Ginny knew, though, because she could feel it burning inside her. She told him to be safe, and that she'd always support him, and she let him go.

Somehow, she knew that he was the only man she could ever love, and she still let him walk away from her, carrying her heart away as he went.

The next year was torture, for them both. He was miles away in unknown country, but she knew he was safe. She could feel his vitality deep inside, in that warm place that only she knew about. She fought hard for him, as she knew he'd want her to. She used her vigor during the day to sabotage the Carrows and Snivellus. At night, she stood in silence by her window, staring into the stars wondering if Harry could see what she could see. When the stars were veiled by clouds, she ventured down to the common room to gaze at the fire until she was too tired to stand anymore. Only then, when she was assured she was far too tired to dream, would she climb into her bed and sleep.

And then, one day, even Hogwarts wasn't safe anymore. So she left, and went back to staring out her own window at the Burrow, thinking about Harry, wishing him luck.

The battle was a blur. It was flying beams of green and red, puffs of smoke, pops of apparition, and the unmistakable sound of the collapse of Hogwarts' wards. She heard the announcement old Tom made about Harry coming into the forest or else he kills everyone. She felt his determination. She knew what he would do. And then, minutes later, she felt his presence move silently across the lawn behind her. She turned to look, but saw nothing. She followed the feeling of him with her eyes as best as she could, but it wasn't an exact science. She only hoped that he could see the love in her eyes, and her silent request that he come back to the castle.

She could have stopped him, but she knew that he would never forgive her. She knew this is what he wanted, what he needed. It was what he was meant to do.

She felt him die.

In the pit of her stomach, in a place that had been warmed by the life-force of Harry Potter for the past 5 years, she felt nothing but emptiness and bitter cold.

He was gone. She knew. She couldn't feel the cold anymore, but she couldn't feel anything else either. She was numb to the world, numb to her own emptiness. And yet, until Hagrid carried him out of the forest, limp and clearly dead, she refused to believe it. But there he was. Dead. Gone. Forever. The keeper of her heart had died and taken it with him.

She'd never screamed so loudly in her entire life.

And now she burned with something different. Rage. Rage like she'd never known. It started in that numb, cold place and grew until she was on fire with it. In some corner of her brain she registered that Harry had disappeared, and Neville had killed the snake with the ever-present Sword of Gryffindor. All she knew was that she needed to fight someone, someone she could destroy, but not too easily.

Bellatrix provided the perfect target. She engaged her in the most violent duel she'd ever had in her life. And she relished in it. Her Harry was gone, she had nothing to lose. Her family would miss her, she knew that, but what was a life without Harry Potter? She couldn't live with that cold emptiness for the rest of her life. Burning rage was better. Death was better. Death stared down at her with the face of Bellatrix Lestrange.

And then Death died, killed by Ginny's own mother in a last effort to protect her daughter, her princess.

Ginny would have to learn to live without him. She would…but there he was, standing in the middle of the Great Hall, wand-to-wand with Voldemort himself. He was back. He wasn't dead. Somehow, he'd defeated death, again. The burning rage inside her had hidden the slow warmth that was Harry's life. Now that her rage was spent, she could feel it, again.

Hope. He was confident. He knew something Voldemort didn't. He destroyed the most evil wizard in all wizarding history with a disarming spell, the simplest of all spells learned at Hogwarts.

Voldemort was dead.

Harry was alive.

Weeks later, and Ginny still hadn't had an opportunity to speak with him. He'd been through a lot. He was healing. She knew he would come to her when he was ready. She'd pass him in the Burrow and feel that wave of warmth, again. If she was lucky, or her timing was right, she'd even catch a flash of that lightning when he looked at her. She knew he'd be okay.

He just needed time to think.

Ginny did, too. That's why she spent her nights at the Burrow staring out her window, trying to pretend she couldn't hear George's crying down the hall, or Harry's pacing in the room above. She pretended Hermione was sleeping, even though she could hear her rolling over in bed. She pretended not to notice when Hermione slipped out in the middle of the night, sometime after Harry stopped pacing, and padded almost silently into Harry and Ron's room. She pretended not to notice when she heard the soft click of the latch on her door as Hermione was sneaking back in every morning, usually minutes before her mum's footsteps were heard coming down the stairs.

It wasn't just Ginny who was silent these days. It was everyone. People moved about the house in silence, They ate meals silently. The silence was so heavy that they could barely breathe. But Ginny knew that things would get better. Things had to get better. One day, the world would be normal, again. There would be laughter and food and family. They would smile at each other, and pick on each other, and fight with each other. But for today, there was only a roaring silence.

And with that final thought, Ginny turned from her window and climbed into bed, letting the rhythm of Harry's pacing lull her to sleep, hoping, as she'd been hoping for the past 23 days, that tomorrow would be a little bit brighter than today.


	2. Chapter 2

It was somewhere around Day 37 that things began to seem normal again.

Hermione had confided to Ron earlier in the week that she was considering leaving her parents in Australia rather than complicate their lives further by tracking them down and bringing them back. She had no idea how she would explain any of this to her parents, anyway. Not to mention the fact that they literally had nothing to come back to. Their dental practice went under without any dentists, and they sold their house when they moved away. Hermione felt that their lives would be better if they just continued to be the people she had made them believe they were.

Ron told her that was a load of bollocks and immediately started planning the trip to retrieve them. Hermione was suitably pleased to see him working so hard for her. So was everyone else. Having something to do seemed to bring first Ron, then everyone else out of their stupor, as it took every last person to organize the Grangers' homecoming. Arthur Weasley returned to his office, threw all his papers on the floor, and converted his desk to a command center. He owled every Australian authority he could contact, inquiring after anyone by the name of Wendell or Monica Wilkins. When his inquiries were met again and again by resistance from the muggle government, Arthur was forced to call in a favor.

Kingsley Shacklebolt had been named Temporary Minister of Magic, but everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the position became permanently his. Luckily for Arthur, he and Kingsley had become quite close during their time with the Order. They had often been partnered together on missions, and Arthur found the man very agreeable. He hoped his presence here today wouldn't complicate their friendship too much.

"Mr. Weasley. Mr. Weasley, sir?"

"Yes! Yes, yes, sorry. I was a bit distracted."

"Perfectly all right, Mr. Weasley, sir," said the chipper Desk Witch, outside Kingsley's…er…_Minister Shacklebolt's_ office. "The Minister will see you now."

"Right. Good. Thank you." He smiled nervously at the Desk Witch, straightened his shoulders, and turned the knob on the Minister's office door.

At the creak of the hinge, Kingsley lifted his head from the paperwork on his desk and smiled.

"Arthur! Good to see you! I admit, your visit is unexpected, but I'm very glad you've come. Please, sit. You've no idea how wonderful it is to see a face with no deception in it. It seems that everyone who stops by my office these days has some sort of hidden agenda or secret affiliation with Voldemort they're trying to cover up. You, you, I know I can trust. But, I would venture to say you haven't come up just to see an old friend, have you? You'd always be welcome, you know. Anyway, what can I help you with, Arthur?"

"Minister, I—" Kingsley held up a hand and shook his head at Arthur.

"Friend, please. Just Kingsley. We both know it could have been either of us sitting behind this desk, and I refuse to allow my trusted friend to play the subservient fool. 'Kingsley' will do just fine, especially within the confines of this office."

Arthur gave him a warm smile. "Just Kingsley, then. And for the record, I think the best man got the job. I would've been a mess in your position. I just don't have the skill you have with Muggles. In fact, it's a couple of Muggles who bring me here, today. As you may or may not know, Hermione Granger modified her parents' memory and gave them a very strong desire to move to Australia before she and Ron left to help Harry on his mission. Ron has mobilized the family to help retrieve them. They've been living as Muggles named Wendell and Monica Wilkins, so my efforts to go through the usual magical channels have met with very little success. I dug up some of my old contacts in the Australian Muggle Relations office, but they've proven unhelpful. The Muggle government is telling me that I can't retrieve any information about the Wilkins without proof of familial relationship or a government document. Since Hermione can no longer prove her relationship to her parents because of their modified memories and records, I have no way of discovering where they are on the Australian continent. I was hoping you could step in with some ministerial documents and see how far you can get. I know you're busy, and I'm not asking you to do it all today. We just can't really do a whole lot until we know where they are."

The Minister sat in thought for a few minutes, while Arthur sat silently in his chair realizing he'd just asked the Minister of Magic for a huge favor, and hoping it didn't backfire on him.

When minutes were starting to feel like hours and Arthur was beginning to regret asking so much of his powerful friend, Kingsley spoke.

"I think I can help you. It isn't going to be easy, mind you. That's just what I was thinking about. The Australian Ministry of Magic has some pull with the Muggle government, but our Ministry of Magic and theirs have experienced a strained relationship since Fudge's reign. Scrimgeour was too busy letting the ministry hire Death Eaters and begging Harry to be the poster-boy to worry much about diplomacy, especially with such a distant country as Australia. They were unlikely to help us out in the war effort, anyway, being so far off and out of the fighting. Rufus placed them at the absolute bottom of his list of priorities. Repairing the lines of communication have been near the top of _my_ list for weeks, now, but it's been slow going. They just don't trust us, anymore, Arthur. I have managed, however, to develop a contact within the Ministry who would be helpful, I think. I'll contact him tomorrow and see what I can dig up for you. I don't know how fast this will go. The paperwork itself could take weeks, but I promise I'll do the best I can."

"Thank you so much, Minis…er…Kingsley. You have no idea what this is going to mean to Hermione. She was ready to give up on them, but we told her we'd never leave them behind. Er, well, _Ron_ told her, actually. But we all said he was right. But that's not important. We owe you, Kingsley. If you ever need anything that the Minister of Magic can't get on his own, just let me know and I'll be happy to help, if I can."

Kingsley laughed a deep laugh and waved as Arthur exited his office with a smile.

Arthur walked into his kitchen to find it buzzing with life. This was only unusual because it had been uncharacteristically quiet in his kitchen for the past year or so. This kitchen, however, almost resembled the flurry of activity that preceded Bill and Fleur's wedding. The table was spread with papers, cutouts, sketches, different colored squares, while smells of dinner were wafting pleasantly from the oven.

"Good evening, Dear. Did you discover anything productive at work today?" Molly greeted him with a rare smile.

"Not today, Molly, sorry. But I'll tell you what I _did_ do over supper. It smells wonderful, by the way. Is it nearly ready?"

"Nearly. We'll have to do something with all this mess on the table. Harry, Hermione and I were looking over some things earlier and I'm afraid we never got around to cleaning anything up." She made a complicated twirl of her wand and suddenly the papers, color squares and cutouts were organizing themselves into neat piles and sailing into an empty box in the corner. "There. That'll do for now. If you call Ginny down to set the table, I suppose we'll be ready to eat."

"Already here, Mum." Ginny stepped down the last few stairs and entered the kitchen.

"Perfect timing, Ginny dear. Set the table while I finish up the last of dinner, would you please? Then gather the boys and Hermione so we can eat."

Ginny set about her tasks with the ease of long practice. The table was set in a heartbeat and she went about the more difficult task of finding her family. Some of them were easy. George was either sulking in his room, or sulking in the garden. It was a rather dreary day out, so he'd probably be in his room. Ron was wherever Hermione was, and lately that was wherever they thought no one would find them. Since they weren't at all creative, they were likely in Ron's room or the broom shed. Harry was the only real wildcard. The weather didn't seem to faze him, and he was just as likely to be outside on a dreary day like this as he was to be inside. In fact, given the fact that Ron and Hermione were likely in Ron's room, Harry had no choice but to go outside. Well, or watch Hermione and Ron snog each other to death, but she didn't think he'd really consider that an "option". Still, knowing Harry was outside was only partially helpful, as the Burrow's grounds were quite expansive. She stood on the back porch and closed her eyes, finding the warm place that she associated with Harry.

She'd discovered, recently, that if she thought hard enough, she could get a better read on Harry. She could decipher his location, ascertain his basic mood, even tell when he was thinking about her. These weren't new things. What was different was that now she could do it even when they weren't in the same room. She used that ability now as a compass, to point her in the right direction. She felt a pull to her right, and set off across the grounds towards the orchard.

She should have thought of the orchard. Harry always liked to go where he would be less likely to be seen, and the orchard provided plenty of tree-cover for that. Ginny could tell, even from this distance, that Harry was both troubled and calmed today. She didn't have much time to ponder what caused his calmness as she approached his location.

She rounded the corner of an uneven row of trees and saw him. He was sitting with his back against a crooked tree, thumbing through some pages with colorful sketches on them. They looked like design patterns, and Ginny had no idea what he was doing with them. He looked engrossed in whatever he was doing, and didn't even hear her approach.

"Harry?"

Before she could blink his wand was pointed in her face and the papers were scattered all over the ground. She let out a squeak of surprise and jumped backwards. Harry's eyes caught up with his reflexes and he lowered his wand embarrassedly.

"Sorry, Gin. It's a reflex thing, you know?" He smoothed his hair, a telltale sign of nervousness.

"Don't worry about it, Harry. I'd be jumpy, too, I suppose. I am jumpy, actually. Nearly hexed Angelina Johnson today when she walked into the twins, er, I mean, George's shop today. And she didn't even sneak up on me, just walked right in the front door while I had my back turned to take inventory."

"Better to be too prepared than not at all, I guess," Harry said, picking up the last of his papers and standing. "I figure you're here to fetch me for dinner, then?"

"Right, as usual. Mum's in a good mood today. The kitchen smells better than it's smelled since…well, you know, in a long time." It was a casual way of saying since the battle, since Fred died, since the world got turned upside down. But they didn't have to say it. They both knew what she meant. "Are you ready to go inside? I bet Dad's finished gathering the rest of the family by now. We'll be the last back."

"Well I guess we'd better go, then," Harry said. He led the way out of the orchard and Ginny followed a step behind.

When Ginny thought about it, this was the first time she'd really been alone with Harry since that day in May when he killed Voldemort and saved the world. She'd seen him, yes, but they hadn't really talked one-on-one since…well she wasn't sure she could remember exactly when. She hadn't envisioned their first conversation post-battle to be so…normal and casual. They had lots of things to talk about, but it still seemed too raw and too heavy for such a dark time. She was waiting for things to get better, if they ever would.

They arrived back at the Burrow just as George was stumbling down the stairs to the table. They hadn't asked George for much help with Hermione's parents simply because they couldn't think of anything for him to do. Instead, Ginny had taken it upon herself to inventory, stock, and clean the shop to get it ready for George to reopen it. She'd seen how this project of Hermione's had given them something to work towards, and she needed to give George something like that, too. Having a goal was helping them heal. This dinner was proof of that.

Day 41 was the first Weasley dinner they'd had since Bill and Fleur's wedding. They'd eaten, of course, but it was usually more of a necessity than a pleasure. Molly would make something and then as they got hungry they'd come down, eat, and go back upstairs to mope. Molly couldn't do anything about it because she was doing the exact same thing. Only now that they were feeling productive again, feeling human again, did Molly reinstate family dinners.

They sat around the table with an odd mixture of nervousness and comfort. They were still the same family, almost, but there was an obvious empty seat between George and Arthur, and nobody quite knew what to talk about. Molly set the last of the dinner down on the table and took her seat.

"Well, go ahead. Eat!"

Ron wasted no time digging his fork into the food, and with a small chuckle at Ron's ever-present appetite, the rest of them began to eat, too. And it was almost normal. After a little bit of small talk, Arthur decided to share the story of his meeting with Kingsley. His news was met with an explosion of noise from the whole table.

"Oh Dad that's great! I just know—"

"If anyone can get it done, Kingsley can. He's never stopped short—"

"Mr. Weasley, thank you so much. You have no idea what this means to—"

"Arthur, dear, that's wonderful! How was the Minister? Was he happy to see—"

"Slow down! Slow down! Kingsley's doing wonderful, and he'd be appalled to hear you all calling him 'Minister'. Practically threw me out of his office when I tried it. I'm sure he'll do his best to help in any way he can, but we must remember he _is _a busy man, now. I don't expect him to have any instantaneous success, but he seemed to think he could help us. In the meantime, we need to begin setting things up so they have a place to stay when they come back. We'd be happy to have them here, but I just don't think they'd be comfortable around all this magic for any length of time. I don't know much about Muggle real estate, but I'm sure we could find someone to help us figure it out. Do you have any idea where they'll want to live, Hermione?"

"Actually, Mr. Weasley, I think I may be able to help," Harry said quietly from his seat next to Ron. He smoothed his hair. Nervous, again. "See, I've been thinking. I have a house. It isn't much to look at right now, and it's certainly much scarier than the Burrow, but it's empty, which we can't say for the Burrow, and it's in London, which is a better place to open a new dental practice then Ottery St. Catchpole, and it's not a place I'm really ever looking forward to occupying again. I don't know what kind of curses were placed on it when the Death Eaters got in, but I'm sure whatever damage they caused we could reverse. We'd need Bill to look it over and see if it's safe before we go in, of course, but I think we could fix it up and let the Grangers live there. I already spoke to Hermione and Mrs. Weasley about it, and they helped me draw up some rough sketches of how the rooms could look with a little redecoration. I know it probably isn't exactly what The Grangers are looking for, but I'd be happy to let them live there as long as they want, or until they've made enough money to buy a new house. I'm just looking for a way to help, Mr. Weasley. After Bill looks the place over, I'll take whoever wants to go and we'll get started on the remodel."

"Harry! That sounds like a wonderful idea. I hadn't even thought of that. I'll contact Bill tomorrow and see when he's available to look at the house."

"That's brilliant, Harry. I understand those drawings you had in the orchard, now. Is it okay if I see them?"

"Oh! Yeah, I forgot they were still in my pocket, actually. Hang on," he pulled the slightly crumpled papers out of his pocket and handed them to Ginny. "There you go. There were more on the table, earlier. These are just a few I was considering."

She looked down at the drawings in her hand. Harry was right when he said "rough sketches". Neither Harry, Hermione, or her mum could draw very well. But even with their rudimentary artistry, Ginny could see the potential beauty of the home. They'd chosen light shades of blue, green and yellow for the various rooms in the house, with sheer white curtains and rich mahogany furniture. It was the perfect balance of light and warmth. She pictured these rooms in her head, transformed and brightened by their upcoming renovations. It was a place any person would be happy to call home.

"I want to help," she said. "This is…it's just amazing. I want to be a part of it."

Harry looked at her and smiled. She felt a rush of warmth and sizzle of electricity, stronger than she'd felt it since the wedding.

"I'd love to have your help, Ginny. I know you'd be brilliant at it. I've no idea how to do any of this stuff, so once we get the place cleared you and Hermione can take the lead. Maybe we'll even do some of it the Muggle way, just for fun."

"Sounds like a plan, Harry." Their eyes met and they shared a smile. There was the warmth again, and that electric spark. His eyes danced with excitement about his new project, and, Ginny hoped, the prospect of getting to work closely with her.

Their moment snapped when Ron reached across Harry to get another dinner roll, severing the link between Harry and Ginny. She shook her head and looked back at her plate.

They passed the rest of their dinner talking excitedly about the plans for Grimmauld Place. Nobody noticed when George slipped out to return to his room. He alone felt, well, alone and useless. Slowly, the rest of the Weasley's drifted off to bed, Ron and Hermione following very close behind each other, until only Harry and Ginny were left poring over the pictures and paint squares, trying to come up with the best possible design.

When Ginny yawned for the third time in five minutes, she finally decided it was probably time to go to bed.

"I'm sorry, Harry. But I've got to go to bed. I can't even tell the difference between ice blue and glacier blue, anymore. We're not going to get anything else done tonight. We'll look at it again in the morning, okay? Goodnight, Harry." Ginny stood to go, pushing the papers in front of her back into a neat pile and stacking them next to Harry. "Don't stay up too late, okay? You want to be able to get started as soon as Bill tells you it's alright. That'll be difficult if you're still asleep, don't you think?"

"Alright, Ginny. Thanks. I'll head up in a minute. Just want to finish sorting through these colors. They got mixed up earlier when Ron was looking through them, so I want to put them back in order. I'll see you tomorrow, Gin."

"See you tomorrow, Harry," she said as she walked around the table to the stairs. Harry felt her place a small kiss on the top of his head and whisper a soft "Goodnight" as she passed by, and then, she was gone. He sat still for a moment, fighting the desire to follow her to her room and show her what a real goodnight kiss was supposed to be like. But that would be inappropriate. It was too soon. He'd wait until things started to get better. He didn't even know where they stood, these days. It didn't change how he felt, but he knew they weren't ready to start their relationship again. They had more important things to worry about, right now.

When he felt he was under control, he finished sorting the last of the paint squares, and stacked them neatly on the table. He climbed the stairs and fell straight into bed. For the first time in over a month, Harry fell asleep in an instant, dreaming only of Ginny Weasley.


End file.
